Viridian Skies
by Monochrome.RIOT
Summary: Apparently when it comes to the life-changing things, destiny is uncontrollable and chooses the least likely. FAILSUMMARY


**Disclaimer: I own no characters except for the OC 'Aiedail'.**

The reason why all the servants feared that room was quite valid, she knew.

No one had ever returned from there alive.

Many rumors circulated around what happened to servants who were sent to _that _room to 'clean', wild tales involving ferocious beasts that liked human meat for dinner, sick 'scientists' who evidently needed victims to test out their experiments on.

Aiedail knew that they were all, _very _likely options, despite having not served in the palace itself for very long…

Just walking down the hallways (and getting hopelessly lost more than thrice), had led her to form the opinion that the dark citadel in Uru'baen was _not _a place that she'd wanted to work in.

It wasn't like she had a choice though, because servants were hand-picked, and the pay was reasonably better than most 'low salary' jobs; once it was 'requested' of Aiedail, her parents were more than happy to send her off to serve the king.

She could hardly blame them.

Money was a universal problem these days, with all these whispers circulating of war against Surda, the fainter ones speaking of a new dragon rider (a renegade that refused to serve the king), though such talk was generally disapproved and if one was caught telling 'lies' they might wake up the next morning to find that they no longer had a tongue.

While Aiedail would be more open about her opinion, a promise to her parents kept her from sticking her nose into unneeded business.

The mysterious disappearances of the servants, well, the very start of a need to have them go into that forbidden chamber, quite next to the king's room, had begun ever since the disappearance of the Shade.

She could still remember how her skin crawled whenever he was even in the same room, and once again, she kept her head down, never had to interact with him, and was thankful for that much alone; she'd later heard one of the generals speaking of the Shade's being dead, though he was clearly intoxicated, and she didn't know whether to take him seriously.

She decided that it barely affected her anyway; she had problems of her own, ambitions crushed due to her gender, and poverty that drove her to becoming a maid for the castle.

She should have expected it, but there was no denying her surprised when she'd first heard.

_She'd been asked to clean __**that **__room. _

Due to it being opposite the king's chambers, there was already a lot of protection in place. Guards who might as well have been made from stone with how still they stood, and she could bet that there were probably a few magicians around as well.

No doubt they'd be searching her mind, for any kind of 'wrong' intent, she thought sourly.

She had never learned to protect her mind, and it frustrated her that no matter how hard she tried, she always lost concentration too quickly.

It was a flaw, but one that often left her feeling useless.

Apparently learning something like that was something so basic that even dunces could master it (according to a prissy wine-server who often made it a point to boast about how she was so much better than her).

It made her feel worse.

No sooner did she think it, did those very forces invade her mind, searching through her memories, and her thoughts, for anything that could remotely oppose the king. These 'magicians' were by no means 'gentle', but the ache in her head was still nothing compared to what she just _knew _to be their mockery of that fear she had; of dying when she did nothing wrong.

Still, Aiedail was not a girl who would show her pain openly.

A small frown marred her lips, and her hands clenched into fists, knuckles whitening ever so slightly.

She endured it.

After that was finished, an elderly man stepped out of the very room she was supposed to enter; his eyes seemed blank, devoid of emotion. He beckoned for her to come forward, and she complied, the full measure of her situation hitting her with each step she took.

Not one servant who had been sent up here to clean this room had ever been seen alive afterwards.

A curious side of her wanted to know just what it was in that room that was so precious, but for the most part, she was just praying for some kind of miracle to come save her from _this _fate.

Though it was clear enough to her that she was past the point of no return now.

The old man spoke, snapping her out of her own thoughts as she reached him.

"You will not touch anything that does not need cleaning, understood, girl?" He asked; though she supposed the words should have sounded commanding, they were once again, merely blank.

If it was a threat, or a warning, it barely affected her.

She nodded, rigidly, before being shortly shoved into the room by the man. Cleaning supplies had been left there for her, but without the hallway's light, the circular chamber looked morose. The walls, the floor, everything was black.

Plain, uninteresting, and she wasn't sure what it was that was so…

Dark grey eyes, in their hasty scan of the room, froze on the object that sat in the middle of this room. A black stand that reminded her of a miniature tower with designs of some sort intricately carved into the stone. She didn't know the precise material.

Though her focus was on something else entirely…

That being, a large oval shaped stone, unlike anything she had every set her eyes on before. It was shaded in green, something that didn't exactly remind her of emeralds, but she had seen ladies of the court wearing jewelry adorned with a similar kind of stone.

Though this looked far more magnificent.

It definitely didn't need cleaning or polishing it would seem, but the old man's words went right out of her mind at that moment. Since she was probably going to die the moment she left this room, she decided to give in to that curiosity that was biting at her mind.

She wondered, if that stone would be as smooth to touch as it looked.

'_Idiot, don't just go around interfering, it'll be the end of you.' _The voice of reason argued with her, as she took a careful step closer to that rock.

'_No, this is fine.' _She said back.

It wasn't like she would _steal _the rock or do anything that reckless. Since she truly believed that her life was at an end, she figured that it was okay.

It was okay to just _touch _the thing, and then she could just go back to her work.

She had nothing to lose anymore, and so her footsteps brought her closer to the object that she currently desired.

When she was within reachable distance, she stopped walking.

Slowly, and unsurely, her hand reached out, hovering over the green stone, and hesitating for a mere second.

Her fingers brushed against the surface.

It really was, just as it looked; _smooth. _

At that very moment, the door was thrown open sharply, and a furious voice rang out.

"YOU! How dare you, a filthy servant, touch…" It caught Aiedail completely off guard, and she spun around, away from the rock, her hand retracting immediately.

"I was just…"

"Silence!" The voice belonged to a younger magician, whom she had seen outside earlier, though it was only now that she noticed the air of superiority about him, and that, accompanied with the sheer fury in his tone, gave away that he was not just 'any' magician.

Shortly after he said that, two more guards came in, and roughly grabbed the girl, forcing her away from the stone; the sorcerer then regarded the girl, though his expression clearly showed her, that he thought of her as nothing more than dirt under his shoes, if any existed.

"Take this filth to the dungeon, her punishment for this atrocity shall be overseen by me." He spat; amber orbs focused on the green stone for a moment, as though checking it over, though it seemed that he himself dared not go close to it.

The gaze lingered for a moment, before he scoffed and walked out of the room; the doors were shut behind him, sealed once again, with locks and spells to keep it under protection.

The stone continued to sit atop it's tower, seemingly unaffected by the events that took place mere seconds ago; it was a stone, that had lived for many years, unmarred, untouched, and it almost felt as thought the creature inside it would pass the rest of it's life in a catatonic state.

Or perhaps, all it would really take was a touch.

For something to awaken.

**A/N: The rewrite. Kind of boring first chapter/prologue? I'm not sure . I don't want to rush it too much :/ but the next part will be better; Plus I need to start re-reading all the books O3O**

**Reviews would be appreciated and I'm really hoping this turns out better than the previous failure that this was. **


End file.
